East Central and Braham Open Their Boys Basketball Season in an in Conference Battle

East Central hosted Braham on Friday night.

These two teams split their regular season series last year, but Braham had the final say in the playoffs. East Central has a the conference title the last few years and look to defend it, but Braham has aspirations of a title themselves.

Both teams knew they needed to get off to a hot start. Early on both teams had some rust to knock off, there were some early mishaps on both sides. While it took some time, the scoring came and the teams looked like the teams we remember from last year. It wasn't just the scoring but the defenses both made plays. But sometimes the defense played alittle too well, fouls piled up in the 1st half, and between the two teams there were 25 fouls. And by the end of the 1st half both teams had 3 or 4 players with 2 fouls or more. Despite all this the teams continued to battle and at the end of the half the Eagles lead 39-32.

The 2nd half got off to a hot start for both teams, the shots were falling seemingly at will. Both teams moved the ball around well, but also got the ball in the hot hand and let them go. Braham played from behind the entire 2nd half and were looking for anything to get them over the hump. But everytime it seemed like they found the recipe, East Central broke through and found another way to score. The back and forth continued till the end of the game. The Eagles continued to do what they needed to to keep the lead, and Braham was starting to feel the pressure as the half ran on. And while the Bombers made a couple of runs, they were unable to overcome their deficit and the Eagles went on to win 83-74.

The Eagles start the season 1-0 across the board, with same record in section and conference play. They'll play in Ogilvie on Tuesday night.

Braham starts 0-1 but they will get another chance on Tuesday when they host Hinckley-Finlayson.

Scoring

East Central:

Xavior LeTexier 24

Ben Carlin 21

Levi Kosbab 17

Reace Youngberg 14

Cody Robinson 4

Brayden Olson 2

Grady Swenson 1

Braham:

Garett Lidke 24

Tyler Eklund 18

Dominick Nahl and Eliyah Belden 9

Soren Lilly and Isaac Eklund 7